I've read here a lot about bombing tactics, but there is not too many about defender tactics. I'm a bit noob and not sure how to play the LW side in BTR. In 44 scenarios allied side have plenty of escorts and very tough ones. How do you procede? I start to see radio traffic. I've noticed that about 50 radio traffic points are equal to a "mission". So if I see 500 radio traffic points I know that there will be abot 10 allied attacks. I also have a lot of info from radar: altitude and speed mainly. Speed is a good info to detect fighters, slow bombers, or faster bombers. Then I decide if I have any chance against any of the missions that start to be shown in the screen... and then I don´t know how to manage tactically my units. How to manage doctrine, launching big or small groups, patroling, morale, selecting objectives/raids to be attacked, positioning of the interceptors (do affect if I try to attack from a side, from the front, etc), etc... Any advice will be apreciated!

I like to focus on one raid. I try to avoid the Allied short range escorts. I then try to force their long range escorts to spend so much fuel fighting my interceptors that they abort. When it looks like I might get some bombers unescorted I order my heavy fighters to attack the bombers. Preferably rocket groups first since they are good at breaking up bomber formations. My remaining interceptors in the air I order to attack straggler bombers.

Often I do not let my heavy fighters attack the bombers untill they are on their way home. I hate when allied fighters gets to slaughter my heavy fighters. When their bombers are on their way back I launch my refueled interceptors to stop/delay the allied later escort groups if my heavies are shooting down bombers. I abort all my aircraft before their late escorts reach the bombers. No real point to risk the heavies and my interceptors can always fight the allied fighters another time when there is a point to it. I have no interest in trading planes with the allies. They have way to many fighters anyway.

Edit: If I suspect that the raid has a target near the front I ignore it. If I suspect they are there to bomb an airbase with my fighters I get the fighters into the air unless the airfield has plenty of AA. I hate getting pilots killed on the ground. Nightfighters should be kept so far from the front that they wont be bombed.

< Message edited by Orm -- 8/14/2011 8:18:31 PM >

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Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb -- they're often students, for heaven's sake. - Terry Pratchett

And what about morale? I have the feeling that low morale units suffer more losses and get worse combat results. But also I need so many units to attack the raids that at the end I send them also to fly... Is it better to send them far away to rest and gain morale before send them again to the fight? How many morale is enough to send them again to the fight? How many days they need for resting?

# Use traps (heavily defended airfields and radar stations; I kept hundreds of Flak at Katwijk radar and it downed >1,000 fighter bombers, taking the Typhoon units almost entirely out of the equation) against the AI.

# reduce France and Italy defence to minimal early on

# send all crap units to Romania (all the Axis allies)

# have few French airfields heavily defended, but occupied by only one fighter group (not farther north than Paris)

# avoid using airfields in range of Spitfires and P-47C (nothing in Belgium, Netherlands!)

# There's no really good nightfighter. You need to make do with 110 and 88. Their radars will be upgraded slowly, so don't change the aircraft equipment very often.

# The Fw 190A-5 and A-6 are good fighters. Change Bf 109, engine and parts production to 190A-5.

# Change much aircraft, engine and parts production to Ta 152C. It's the solution for all daylight troubles and can arrive as early as April.

# Be reluctant to change large production plants (long conversion time) unless you have no use at all for the output.

# Concentrate your interceptor efforts on one big raid at a time. This tears away its fighter escorts and destroys many damaged bombers that would otherwise escape.

# Feel free to not waste good pilots in 109s. Limit their units to easy missions (stragglers, for example).

# Do not try to intercept reconnaissance aircraft until you get the Ta 152C (and the few Me 262A-0).

# Either mass half or whole wings on heavily defended airfields or disperse them on normal ones out of range of most enemy fighters.

# Move fighter units if their airfield has come under severe attacks.

# It's possible to launch fighters more than once against a bomber stream if it's penetrating very deeply. Use the reduced-size units preferably against stragglers, though.

# Equip your divisions in Italy with much AAA and lots of balloons during winter. About the same level of equipment for all, and replenish them regularly (front-line divisions first).

# Do not re-equip your 30x fighter wings with other aircraft, in fact, probably don't use them at all. You can turn them into daylight units in spring '44 if they're still equipped with the old aircraft. Their losses in daylight will be horrible prior to that even against unescorted bombers and they react very slowly to commands. Furthermore, they're quite ineffective at night.

# Employ machineguns exclusively on airfields, and only so if all other anti-air equipment has already been distributed.

Problem with Bf 109: It's too fragile. This in combination with its poor firepower means a poor kill ratio, and a poor kill ratio (= high pilot KIA per 1,000 sorties) means that pilots don't accumulate enough experience, average and median experience drops, you get less really good pilots (>75) who are responsible for the vast majority of kills. This should be your primary concern. Look at the ratio between sorties and KIA.

Fw 190A is not good at high altitude, but it packs a punch and can survive much punishment.

Ta 152C offers a great all-round package and even includes a great range/endurance that allows for an entirely new use of fighter units. You can mass much more groups on one bomber stream and even maintain individual flights on patrol to counter photo reconnaissance.

Bf 110 can be used early on out of range of fighters (with WGr 21 armament), but it should be possible to re-equip these units soon. Use them near Ploesti (Romania) if you still have them in December.

Thanks a lot! My use of Doctrine: I understand that doctrine are basic rules of engagement that planes will try to obey when possible. I change low performance planes to direct attack. I.e. I change fw190a6 and 8 to direct attack in 44 because he can't outmaneuvre allied fighters, but I leave fw190a5 to bounce fighter. I do like that with all the planes (i.e. Bf109G6 to direct, etc). My feelings are that this way worse planes have better possibilities to get kills and survive. What do you think?

My standard fighter is usually on bounce simply because it's more lethal. Nightfighters are on direct. The exotic fighters (110 etc) are usually on default (= direct). I didn't experiment much with this and didn't see much effect from changes in my few experiments.

I'm playing a '44 campaign now against the AI. I know it's different aginst a human, but here they are my tactics: Morale is the key of success. JGs with a good morale get good air combat results and have better chances for surviving. I'm not good at all with production, so I let the AI to manage it. I've changed all my single engine planes with speed below 400 to direct fighter doctrine. I feel that this way they will have any chance against the allied super-fighters (Mustangs i.e.). On the other hand, planes with speed over 400 have bounce fighter doctrine; heavy gunned single engined planes have bounce bomber doctrine and heavies have direct bomber doctrine. I let the AI raids to run their routes. When I'm sure that a Raid will be isolated from others, in a deep way into germany, and I have enough planes to opposite, I scramble my interceptors and try to engage scorts first. In the meantime I send in patrol my heavies. If I'm fortunate enough to leave a bomber box without scorts I send my heavies to hunt them. Sometimes the Flaks help me and broke the formation. Then I send my refueled single engine interceptors to get some kills with the stragglers. I've get good combat results with this tactics against the AI. But I'm pretty sure that won't be enough against a human...

A human will likely observe the timing of interceptions and adapt his escort schedule.

He will furthermore hit your airfields much more and much better than AI.

Another possibility is that human players can use feints much better than the AI does. The most important or most risky northern raid may happen after hours of intense attacks, when your fighter units are at low readiness.